The economic situation of trade in 2025 and early 2026 Report prepared for the Commission for National Commercial Accounts

In 2025, in France, business trends in the commercial sectors improved compared with 2024, despite the economic slowdown. Retail and craft trade sales accelerated. The increase in in-store sales was more pronounced, reaching around 2% for food and 3% for non-food products. Out-of-store sales increased at a similar pace, by more than 2%. In the wholesale sector, the volume of goods sold continued to decline, but at a much slower pace than in 2024. In particular, sales of goods by wholesalers of fuels and related products, as well as products for home and building installation, declined again, though less sharply than in 2024, while sales by wholesalers of raw agricultural products recovered significantly. In the automotive and motorcycle trade and repair sector, turnover fell by just over 1%, a significantly smaller decline than in 2024.

In the trade sector, salaried employment declined more markedly than in the commercial services sector. Lastly, business start-ups accelerated significantly, while insolvencies levelled off.

In the first quarter of 2026, excluding seasonal and working-day effects, turnover in the trade sector as a whole is expected to increase in volume by 1.5 % compared with the 2025 annual average.